IMPERIAL INFLUENCE AND LOCAL TRADITIONS: SOCIETY AND MATERIAL CULTURE IN MUGHAL GUJRAT

Abstract

The following article explores the city of Gujrat during the Mughal era as a regional town and its agricultural hinterland instead of considering it to be a small replica of the Mughal capitals. The city of Gujrat was situated in the Chaj Doab, lying between the Jhelum and Chenab rivers. In the larger context, Gujrat was placed within the political and economic geography of Mughal Punjab. Yet, in terms of sources, this area has received an uneven coverage with the works on Mughal administration and architecture providing the wider context and district gazetteers, local histories and sites giving a much later and incomplete picture of Gujrat itself. The current article attempts to distinguish the direct sources on Gujrat, the subsequent works carrying local traditions, and the wider patterns of Mughal period that can give context but cannot independently prove anything for Gujrat. Any claims made concerning the specifics of crafts, settlement configurations, and monuments are handled very carefully when the sources used to write about them do not provide information concerning the chronology of these aspects. This paper asserts that what makes the region of Gujrat historically significant is not the presence of an established imperial programme of urbanization in this area, but rather the way the local settlement was linked with imperial authority.